Isabella AUSTIN

Female Abt 1633 - 1719  (~ 86 years)


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  • Name Isabella AUSTIN 
    Born Abt 1633  Colchester, Essexshire, England Find all individuals with events at this location 
    • Edmund West, comp.. Family Data Collection - Births [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: The Generations Network, Inc., 2001.

      The Family Data Collection - Births database was created while gathering genealogical data for use in the study of human genetics and disease.

      Name: Isabella Austin
      Father: Francis Austin
      Mother: Isabella Bland
      Birth Date: 1633
      City: Colchester
      County: Essexshire
      Country: England
    Christened 09 Jun 1633  Great Gidding, Huntingdonshire England Find all individuals with events at this location 
    • England and Wales Christening Records 1530-1906, Ancestry.com
    Gender Female 
    _UID 823B65B27A2B46E39112E2FC8EB0FDD331C0 
    Died 7 Dec 1719  Hampton, Rockingham Co., NH Find all individuals with events at this location 
    • Genealogical Dictionary of Maine and New Hampshire, Sybil Noyes, Charles Libby and Walter Davis, Southworth-Anthoensen Press, 1928-1939,p. 689.

      Vital Records of Hampton New Hampshire to the End of the Year 1900, George Freeman Sanborn and Melinde Lutz Sanborn, New England Historic Genealogical Society, Boston, MA, 1992, Vol 1, p. 126.
    Buried Pine Grove Cemetery, Hampton, Rockingham Co. NH Find all individuals with events at this location 
    Notes 
    • Isabella was persecuted for witchcraft. She and Rachel Fuller were accused in the summer of 1680 after the death of a child of John Godfrey. Rachel confessed and accused Isabella. both were committed to prison where they remained until the sitting of the Hampton Court, September 7, 1680. The court ordered that they continue in prison until bond be given for their good behavior of 100 pounds each. John Fuller became a bondsman for his wife, and Isaac Marston and John Redman for Isabella (it is likely that husband Philip was not able to raise the required bond). They were discharged at the Dover court in 1681. She was united with the church on July 2, 1699.

      A second person was charged as a witch that summer at Hampton [1680]. Isabella Towle by name, she was a woman in her late forties, married, and the mother of nine children.(107) Her husband, Philip, was first a seaman," and later a "yeoman" of average position in the community. Beyond this the record does not speak. Particularly unfortunate is the lack of any material on the substantive charges against Goodwife Towle. All that survives is a court order, from September 1680, that "Rachel Fuller and Isabel Towle, being apprehended and committed upon suspicion of witchcraft . . . still continue in prison till bond be given for their good behavior of £100 apiece, during the Court's pleasure. Both defendants were discharged in the following year.

      (107) This woman was born Isabella Austin, dau. of Francis and Isabella [Bland] Austin, in about the year 1633. Her father, an early resident of Hampton, died in 1642, and her mother was remarried thereafter to Thomas Leavitt. The Bland connection, on the mother's side, was a distinguished one: "Mr." John Bland was an early and prominent settler of Martha's Vineyard. Moreover, Thomas Leavitt was a man of considerable stature within Hampton itself. Isabella Austin married Philip Towle November 19, 1657. Towle's origins are not known, though local tradition makes him out an Irishman. He arrived in Hampton just a short while before his marriage. Philip and Isabella [Austin] Towle had children: Philip (born 1659), Caleb (born 1661, killed by Indians 1677), Joshua (born 1663), Mary (born 1665), Joseph and Benjamin (twins, born 1669). Francis (born 1672), John (born 1674), Caleb (born 1678). Philip Towle died in 1696, aged about eighty; his widow died in 1719. See Noyes, et al., Genealogical Dictionary of Maine and New Hampshire, 68-69, 95-96, 425, 689; and the Town Book of Hampton, passim.

      The details of Isabella's ordeal are compelling as related in JOSEPH DOW'S HISTORY OF HAMPTON [NH]
      Chapter 3 -- Part 23 MORE WITCHES

      In July, 1680, a little child of John Godfrey died, and the old cry of witchcraft was raised again. An inquest was held, with twelve solid men of Hampton for jurors, and a verdict rendered: "We find grounds of suspicion that the said child was murdered by witchcraft."

      Godfrey's wife and daughter, Sarah, deposed that Rachel Fuller came in with her face daubed with molasses, and sat down by Goody Godfrey, who had a sick child in her lap, and took his hand; when the mother, in fear, drew the hand away and wrapped it in her apron. Then Rachel Fuller "turned her about and smote the back of her hands together sundry times and spat in the fire." Then she strewed herbs on the hearth and sat down again and said: "Woman, the child will be well;" and then went out, beat herself thrice with her arms, as men do in winter, to heat their hands, picked something off the ground, and went home. The next day, the children told their mother that Goody Fuller had said if they did lay sweet bays under the threshold, it would keep a witch from coming in. So they laid bays under the threshold of the back door all the way, and half way of the breadth of the fore door; and soon after, Rachel Fuller came about to the fore door, though she had always formerly come in at the back door, which is next her house; and she crowded in on that side where the bays lay not, and rubbed her back against the post so that she rubbed off her hat, and sat down and made ugly faces and nestled about and would have looked on the child, but not being allowed to do so, went out as she had come in, after having looked under the door where the bays lay; and she had not been in the house since.

      John Godrey, Nathaniel Smith and Hezron Leavitt made depositions, equally damaging.

      Elizabeth Denham (wife of Alexander), deposed that Rachel Fuller told her "Witches did so go abroad at night, they did lay their husbands and children asleep;" and she said there were eight women and two men in the town, who were witches and wizards.

      The men's names were not given, but the women Goody Fuller reckoned as witches were: Eunice Cole, Benjamin Evans' wife and two (?) daughters, Grace (Swaine) Boulter, Mary (Boulter) Prescott, Isabella (Austin) Towle, "and one that is now dead. " Goody Towle, was, in fact, arraigned about the same time, on a different charge, and both she and Rachel Fuller were committed to prison till the sitting of the Hampton Court, September 7. Then, "The Court having heard ye case of Rachel Fuller and Isabel Towle being apprehended and committed upon suspition of witchcraft doe ordr yt they still continue in prisson till bond be given for their good behavior of £100 a piece during the Courts pleasure."

      John Fuller became bondsman for his wife; and Isaac Marston and John Redman, for Goody Towle. They were discharged at the Dover Court the next year.

      It brings the perils of that time nearer home to recall the fact that she was at one time the victim of the persecution of witchcraft. Both she and a friend were at first accused and the friend,incidently hoping to gain immunity, confessed and put the blame on Isabella Towle. They were both arrested and placed in prison, remaining there from the summer til the 7th of September, when Hampton Court heard their case and released them on bail of one hundred pounds each, and finally, in the following year, discharged the case.

      Maine: A History. The American Historical Society. New York. 191

      Entertaining Satan:Witchcraft and the Culture of Early New England

      By John Putnam Demos
      Oxford University Press - 1982Chapter 10

      http://www.hampton.lib.nh.us/HAMPTON/biog/goodydemos.htm [1]
    Person ID I6862  Master File
    Last Modified 20 Jul 2013 

    Father Francis AUSTIN,   b. Abt 1607, England Find all individuals with events at this location,   d. Bef 13 Jul 1642, Hampton, Rockingham Co., NH Find all individuals with events at this location  (Age ~ 35 years) 
    Mother Isabella BLAND,   b. Abt 1612, England Find all individuals with events at this location,   d. 19 Feb 1699, Hampton, Rockingham Co., NH Find all individuals with events at this location  (Age ~ 87 years) 
    Married 2 Oct 1632  Colchester, Essex, England Find all individuals with events at this location 
    • Philip Towle, Hampton, New Hampshire: His English origins and Some American Descendants, William Haslet Jones, Heritage Books, Inc., Bowie MD, 1995,p. 65.

      Church: Probably St. Mary, the Virgin, Colchester, Essexshire, England
    Family ID F4865  Group Sheet  |  Family Chart

    Family Philip TOWLE,   b. Abt 1616, Crediton, Devonshire, England Find all individuals with events at this location,   d. 11 Dec 1696, Hampton, Rockingham Co., NH Find all individuals with events at this location  (Age ~ 80 years) 
    Married 19 Nov 1657  Hampton, Rockingham Co. NH Find all individuals with events at this location 
    • Source: Yates Publishing. U.S. and International Marriage Records, 1560-1900 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2004.

      Name: Philip Towle
      Gender: Male
      Birth Year: 1616
      Spouse Name: Isabella Austin
      Spouse Birth Year: 1633
      Marriage Year: 1657
      Number Pages: 1

      Source: New England Marriages Prior to 1700, Clarence Almon Torrey, Genealogical Publishing Company, Baltimore, 1985; Reprinted 1997, page 749.

      Source: Vital Records of Hampton New Hampshire to the End of the Year 1900,George Freeman Sanborn and Melinde Lutz Sanborn, New England Historic Genealogical Society, Boston, MA, 1992, Vol 1, p. 73.

      Source: Philip Towle, Hampton, New Hampshire His English Origins and Some American Descendants, William H. Jones, Heritage Books, Inc., p.123: "Philip Towle married, Nov. 19, 1657, Isabella, daughter of Francis and Isabella (Bland) Austin of Colchester, England, and Hampton, NH, and granddaughter of John and Joanna Bland of Edgartown, England"

    Children 
     1. Philip TOWLE,   b. 3 May 1659, Hampton, Rockingham Co. NH Find all individuals with events at this location,   d. 17 Jun 1717, Hampton, Rockingham Co. NH Find all individuals with events at this location  (Age 58 years)
     2. Caleb TOWLE,   b. 17 May 1661, Hampton, Rockingham Co. NH Find all individuals with events at this location,   d. 13 Jun 1677, Hampton, Rockingham Co. NH Find all individuals with events at this location  (Age 16 years)
     3. Joshua TOWLE,   b. 29 Jun 1663, Hampton, Rockingham Co., NH Find all individuals with events at this location,   d. 25 Sep 1715, Hampton, Rockingham Co., NH Find all individuals with events at this location  (Age 52 years)
     4. Mary TOWLE,   b. 1665
    +5. Joseph TOWLE,   b. 04 May 1669, Hampton, Rockingham Co, NH Find all individuals with events at this location,   d. 02 Sep 1757, Hampton, Rockingham Co, NH Find all individuals with events at this location  (Age 88 years)
     6. Benjamin TOWLE,   b. 04 May 1669, Hampton, Rockingham Co, NH Find all individuals with events at this location,   d. 09 May 1759, Hampton, Rockingham Co, NH Find all individuals with events at this location  (Age 90 years)
     7. Francis TOWLE,   b. 01 Aug 1672, Hampton, Rockingham Co, NH Find all individuals with events at this location
     8. John TOWLE,   b. 23 Jul 1674, Hampton, Rockingham Co, NH Find all individuals with events at this location
    +9. Caleb TOWLE,   b. 14 Apr 1678, Hampton, Rockingham Co, NH Find all individuals with events at this location,   d. 20 Sep 1763, Chester, Rockingham Co. NH Find all individuals with events at this location  (Age 85 years)
    Last Modified 26 Dec 2013 
    Family ID F4864  Group Sheet  |  Family Chart

  • Sources 
    1. [S46] Entertaining Satan-Witchcraft and the Culture of Early New England-, John Putnam Demos, (Oxford University Press ), Chapter 10.